Report: New book accuses Diana of death threats

Published: Sunday, October 25, 1998

LONDON (AP) - A new book accuses Princess Diana of making death threats against Camilla Parker Bowles and suggests it was Diana, not Prince Charles, who first committed adultery, a British tabloid reported today.

Excerpts from "Prince Charles, Villain or Victim," by journalist Penny Junor, were being published in The Mail today, which described the book as a defense of Prince Charles by friends who spoke to the author.

The newspaper's tabloid rivals characterized the book as a "smearing" of the late princess and a "vile attack" that will backfire on the prince.

The first installment did not appear in early editions of The Mail today, but a front-page article described the book as a challenge to "some of the inaccuracies and injustices" of Diana's version of events in Andrew Morton's now-famous 1992 book "Diana, Her True Story" and in her television interview.

Junor "suggests" that James Hewitt, the lover Diana acknowledged, was not her first during her marriage and that she already had a relationship with Barry Mannakee, her personal detective, the newspaper said. It claims that relationship happened before Prince Charles resumed his relationship with Mrs. Parker Bowles in 1985.

Mannakee's transfer from his post as Diana's guard, and his subsequent death in a motorcycle accident, were widely reported.

Diana, according to The Mail, is also said in the book to have telephoned Mrs. Parker Bowles late at night and said, "I've sent someone to kill you. They're outside in the garden. Look out of the window; can you see them?"

On the night of Diana's death, Aug. 31, 1997, the newspaper's report about the book says Charles had to argue with Queen Elizabeth II about going to Paris to bring the princess's body home. The queen reportedly allowed the use of one of her aircraft after an aide said: "Would you rather, Ma'am, that she come back in a Harrods van?"

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said Saturday night that "the book was neither official nor authorized.

"We would like to remind people that Prince William and Prince Harry expressed the hope in September that their mother and her memory should finally be allowed to rest in peace," the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.